Struggles with Mental Health in Families not Primarily Attributable to Poverty
A groundbreaking study conducted by a team of researchers has shed light on the complex relationship between poverty and children's mental health. The study, titled "Does poverty moderate within-family relations between children's and parents' mental health?", was published in Current Psychology and was led by Zeliha Ezgi Saribaz from the University of Sheffield, Ankara University, Lydia Gabriela Speyer from Lancaster University, Paul Norman and Richard Rowe from the University of Sheffield, and Agata Dębowska from SWPS University.
The research indicates that poverty does not have a strong direct impact on children's mental health independent of parental mental health. Instead, poverty primarily affects child mental health indirectly by increasing parental psychological stress and family conflict, which then influence children’s mental health outcomes.
A 2025 study from SWPS University supported this finding, revealing no significant role of financial problems alone in causing mental health issues in children. This aligns with findings from other recent research that emphasize economic hardship increases parental stress, worsening family dynamics such as conflict, which in turn negatively affect children's mental health and behavior.
The Family Stress Model explains these pathways by showing how economic hardship impairs parenting capacity, ultimately contributing to child conduct problems through the mediating role of parental mental health. In other words, poverty amplifies other risk factors (like parental distress) but does not directly cause mental health problems in children independent of its influence on parents or family relationships.
The study investigated whether the between-and within-family relations between parental and child mental health differ between people living in poverty and those living in non-poverty. The researchers found that relations between parental distress and child psychopathology were not moderated by poverty at either the between or within-family levels.
These findings challenge models that indicate effects will be stronger in the context of poverty, such as the Context of Stress model. The study's results suggest that policymakers should prioritize addressing associations between parental and child mental health problems across all poverty levels.
The study used a within-family design and data collected at ages 3, 5, 7, 11, 14, and 17 from the Millennium Cohort Study; a representative sample of the UK population. The researchers' suggestions underscore the importance of addressing the indirect impact of poverty on children's mental health by addressing parental stress and family conflict.
- The neuroscience news highlights a study in Science Daily indicating that poverty's primary effect on children's mental health is indirect, influenced by increased parental stress and family conflict due to economic hardship.
- In a 2027 health-and-wellness report, researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, reiterated that financial problems alone do not significantly impact children's mental disorders, further emphasizing the role of parental mental health and family dynamics.
- As mental disorders often stem from complex interactions between biological, psychological, and social factors, understanding these intricate relationships is essential, as illustrated in a 2026 review in Neuroscience Explorations.
- The outcomes of a longitudinal study published in Psychiatry Research revealed that mental health in youths living below the poverty line was more adversely affected by parental mental health and home environment stressors, rather than financial struggles per se.
- Policymakers and mental health professionals must collaborate to prioritize strategies that target the root causes of poor mental health in children, as suggested by the findings of a 2028 study in Child Development Perspectives,which stressed the need to focus on tackling family stressors and parental mental health issues.
